Saying publicly in the Knesset what he had only said privately to congressional
leaders in Washington last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stressed on
Wednesday that Israel would act to defend itself even if the US
objected.
“Israel has never left its fate in the hands of others, not
even in the hands of our best friends,” he said in a speech that focused on the
Iranian threat and drew a direct line from Tehran to the events earlier this
week in Gaza. He also blamed the 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip for
leading to Iran’s establishment of a “forward” terrorist base
there.
Netanyahu cited legendary US secretary of state George Marshall as
telling David Ben-Gurion in 1948 not to declare a state, and reminded the
Knesset that US president Lyndon Johnson not only advised Israel against
preemptive military action in 1967, but warned that “if you act alone, you will
be alone.”
Likewise, he said, former prime minister Menachem Begin knew
when he decided to attack the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 that he was going
against US wishes and would come under sharp international
criticism.
“But he fulfilled his obligation and acted,” said Netanyahu,
possibly preparing the public for the prospect of Israeli military action even
over US objections.
The prime minister said that a nuclear Iran would
pose an “existential threat” to Israel, and that while he would prefer it if
Iran voluntarily abandoned its nuclear ambitions, he had an “obligation” to
retain Israel’s “independent ability” to defend itself.
After five days
of fighting in the South that replaced Iran as the major issue on the country’s
agenda for a short while, Netanyahu’s speech put the attention back on the
Iranian dilemma.
He scoffed at those who argued that an accord with the
Palestinians would solve the Iranian problem.
“As if an agreement with
Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] would stop the [Iranian] centrifuges,” he
said. “Anyone who wants to believe that may do so, but he is burying his head in
the sand.”
What Netanyahu did not say was that US President Barack Obama
linked the Palestinian issue to Iran in the early days of his presidency,
something that created tension between Washington and Jerusalem. Now, however,
the administration has divorced the two issues.
“The dominant element
driving the events in Gaza is not the Palestinian issue,” he said. “The dominant
element driving the events in Gaza is Iran. Gaza is Iran.”
The prime
minister said that Gaza’s missiles, money, terrorist training and terrorist
infrastructure all came from Iran.
“Who is giving the orders?” he
asked.
“Iran. Gaza is Iran’s forward position.”
Netanyahu said
that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah in Lebanon all worked under Iran’s
umbrella.
“Now imagine if that umbrella turns nuclear? Imagine that
behind the terrorist organizations is a state calling for our destruction that
is armed with a nuclear bomb.”
He declared that he was not willing to
live with that scenario, and that “every responsible leader understands that it
is forbidden to let that happen.”
The prime minister, referring to
opposition leader Tzipi Livni’s comments that he was sowing panic, said those
same words had been hurled at him in 2005 when he predicted that as a result of
the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, missiles would be fired from there at
Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod.
“They said then we were sowing panic,” he
said. “They said the unilateral withdrawal would bring a breakthrough on the
road to peace. Nu, what breakthrough? What road? What peace?” Every time Israel
left territory, he continued, Iran moved in.
“We left Lebanon, Iran came
in. We left Gaza, Iran came in. There are those suggesting we do the same thing
in Judea and Samaria,” he declared. “Iran would go in there as well. I don’t
believe there is anyone who doesn’t understand that it is forbidden to repeat
the same mistake a third time.”
Israel’s enemies, he stated, needed to
understand that in the final analysis, Israel would not suffer an Iranian base
in Gaza.
“Sooner or later,” he said, “the Iranian terrorist base in Gaza
will be uprooted.”